In a season that has fallen short of playoff expectations, Detroit owner Tom Gores has been pushing for changes, league sources said.

Cheeks has struggled to manage a flawed roster in terms of its basic construction, which includes Brandon Jennings and Josh Smith playing alongside two more traditional bigs in Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe.

The bench depth is virtually nonexistent, yet ownership mandated playoffs with the money spent in free agency and in the East it’s still very possible for the Pistons, so maybe this gives them a little bit of a bump.

Drummond was benched twice in a recent loss, and his teammates were visibly upset by the maneuver when it happened. Cheeks also benched Smith back in December, so it perhaps became clear to ownership that he would not be able to guide this team to the playoffs, despite currently sitting just a half-game back of the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference standings.

An interim coach has yet to be named, and no, it won’t be Rasheed Wallace. Wojnarowski reports that assistant John Loyer is expected to be the front-runner for the job.

“Our record does not reflect our talent and we simply need a change,” said Pistons owner Tom Gores, via official release. “We have not made the kind of progress that we should have over the first half of the season. This is a young team and we knew there would be growing pains, but we can be patient only as long as there is progress. The responsibility does not fall squarely on any one individual, but right now this change is a necessary step toward turning this thing around. I still have a lot of hope for this season and I expect our players to step up. I respect and appreciate Maurice Cheeks and thank him for his efforts; we just require a different approach.”

Jennings reacted publicly to the news as soon as it broke, and seemed as surprised as the rest of us.

That’s a fine sentiment. Saying it publicly is another matter. Not even Harden did that a couple years ago. He was recorded during a pregame team huddle.

There’s a fine line between self-fulfilling confidence and providing bulletin-board material to the opponent. There’s already some animosity between the teams stemming from the Stephen Curry-Harden MVP race in 2015, and it has bubbled since. No matter how harmless Capela’s remark might have been intended to be, it’ll be met contentiously in the Bay Area.

Oklahoma City traded for Victor Oladipo out of Orlando to be their third scorer, behind Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. It didn’t exactly work out that way, Durant bolted town and when Westbrook went off Oladipo was looking for a place to fit in.

That place turned out to be the Pacers.

Oladipo has been playing like an All-Star this season with Indiana, and last week he was key in snapping Cleveland’s 13 game win streak, then turned around and dropped 47 points on Denver. For the week he averaged 35.7 points a game, shot 45.7 percent from three, plus grabbed 7.7 rebounds per game.